President Barzani in London

Ranj Alaaldin examines the President’s trip to London

Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani last week visited the UK as
part of his European tour. He met the Duke of York, Foreign Secretary David Miliband, Middle East Minister Bill Rammell, Justice Secretary Jack Straw, Defence Secretary John Hutton, and Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague.

The All-Party Parliamentary Groups on the Kurdistan Region and on Iraq hosted a lunch for him at the Commons.

The President also addressed an audience at Chatham House, which LFIQ attended.

The Kurdistan region continues to grow rapidly ahead of the rest of Iraq which has only in recent years started to progress for the better, after a painful struggle against the insurgency and jihadist terrorist attacks.

Often referred to as the "other Iraq", Kurdistan is secular and continues to enjoy the benefits of a booming economy, security, and social development, among others. It is being flooded with foreign investment and is hungry for more. It has vast untouched resources ready to be utilised by the expertise of foreign companies.

The Kurds have faced umpteen challenges in the form of entities, internal and external, that have consistently sought, without success, their obliteration. Although tensions are currently high between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the Baghdad government, the order of the day for the war-scarred President Barzani is democracy and the rule of law.

In response to a question which suggested comparisons between the Baath regime and the current Maliki government, President Barzani dismissed any comparison in its entirety. Iraq has moved on from totalitarianism. Barzani emphasised the need to resolve differences through the law and the mechanisms provided for by the Iraqi constitution.

Kurdistan is a model for the rest of the region and, by Middle East standards at least, is a beacon of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. The danger is assuming that any problems in Kurdistan are exclusive to that region and the Kurds themselves; that would be wholly reckless - Kurdistan is a federal state within a federal Iraq; a weak Kurdistan would therefore equate with a weak Iraq.